A MAN who sent a message in a bottle as a young boy 13 years ago has come forward after the bottle was washed up on Chesil Beach in the recent winter storms.

Lucy Blayney, 30, of Portland, was walking along Chesil Cove on the island the morning after the storm which sparked Chiswell’s flood sirens.

She saw a plastic bottle with a message inside and discovered it was from a seven-year-old named Brandon DuQuenin of Highworth, near Swindon, in Wiltshire.

She sent a letter in reply doubting she would ever hear back and was gobsmacked when she had an email response back from Brandon’s mum telling her Brandon is now 19.

Swindon College student Brandon said: “I can’t believe the bottle has been found after all this time.

“I can’t really remember throwing the bottle in the water as it was so long ago but we think I threw it in the sea at Ilfracombe, so it has come all the way along the south coast.

“It’s an incredible thing to have happened. I’m so glad Lucy found it and wrote to us.”

Lucy said she saw the bottle when she was walking along Chesil Beach with friends to look at the big waves crashing on to the beach.

Lucy, mum to Michael, 5, and Kayne, 4, said: “I can't believe it's been in the sea so long, it's amazing.

“I felt a bit silly writing a letter on coloured paper thinking I was writing to a seven-year-old boy!”

She added that she went to school in Ilfracombe, where the bottle is thought to have originated from.

The bottle was lying among mounds of debris washed up in the cove during the recent storms, which gained the island community national attention.

Brandon’s mum Teresa Page said she was ‘amazed’ to see a letter arrive to the home address from Portland telling her of the bottle’s discovery.

She said: “It is unbelievable that Lucy found it after so much time.

“We used to come down to Weymouth every year when Brandon was younger and always went up to Portland Bill, I wanted to move up there as I love it so much so it’s strange that the bottle was found in this area.”